Man feels 'fobbed off' as council refuses to include his road in university's 20mph scheme
A local man feels "not listened to" and "fobbed off" after a petition signed by 135 people to include his road in a new 20-mile-an-hour zone was rejected by the city council.
Graham Yarrow, of Cannon Park Road in Canley, was outraged when his street was left out of a new traffic safety scheme for the area despite raising concerns about speeding cars five years ago.
The scheme, funded by the University of Warwick, will cover neighbouring Cannon Hill Road and three of its side roads – but not Mr Yarrow's road as council officers believed there were no issues there.
But in 2017, in emails passed on to the council's Traffic Management team, Mr Yarrow complained of speeding cars, saying he feared for his young children and even offering to collect evidence of the zooming vehicles.
At a meeting to decide on the scheme last week (Wednesday 6 April) Mr Yarrow said he didn't know about an informal consultation last year to discuss the scheme, which saw residents of other side roads successfully bid to be included in the plans.
"If I'd have known back then I would have been shouting as loudly as I am now," he said.
Mr Yarrow told the meeting that animals had been killed and maimed on his road due to speeding cars.
"We don't want a person to be next," he said, adding that he and others on the road fear it will become "the path of least resistance" for cars wanting to avoid the 20mph zone and take a short-cut to the A45.
At the meeting Council Officer Joel Logue acknowledged Mr Yarrow's emails to the authority and apologised that this point wasn't included in a council report ahead of the meeting.
He said the information wasn't recieved by officers making decisions on the scheme and insisted that all residents in the area were made aware of the plans.
But Mr Logue, backed up by a dialled-in legal expert, said Cannon Park Road couldn't be added to the scheme without expensive re-consultations using public funds.
"This was all agreed previously and got residents' and councillors' support," he told the meeting.
Mr Logue claimed that the funding from the university wouldn't stretch to the road without watering down the proposals. "This money was agreed when £100,000 went very far," he said.
The council's cabinet member for city services, councillor Patricia Hetherton, agreed with Mr Logue and gave the scheme the green light.
"We try and reach as many people and there will always be someone who says I didn't know about it," she said.
"We do have this problem of rat-runs around the city. At least in this particular area there's money to do something about it."
An experimental traffic management order (ETMO) was recommended for the road instead – meaning temporary '20mph' signs will be put in place for six months but there will be no physical traffic calming measures such as speed cushions.
Wainbody councillors Mattie Heaven and Tim Sawdon were also encouraged to ask the University of Warwick for more funding.
But Mr Yarrow told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that he felt "not listened to and fobbed off" by the council's response at the meeting.
"The only way [we] will slow traffic down is with physical measures," he said.
He emphasised that he and other residents have no problem with the University of Warwick, and are grateful for their funding of the scheme and engagement with locals.
Cllr Heaven, who sponsored Mr Yarrow's petition and was at the meeting last week, said it was "ridiculous" the road wasn't included in the scheme.
She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "I'm grateful for Cannon Park Road residents for raising the issue and this petition and I will work tirelessly with my two colleagues to get a scheme implemented a soon as we can, as it's ridiculous to have left this road out of the overall scheme for Cannon Hill Road."
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